Unwrapped (8 page)

"Well, well, well," said Greg, finally, huffing
out a breath and boosting himself off the arm of the chair. He tapped an index
finger to the slight dent in his chin before making for the kitchen.
"Nibblies?"

Derrick stared after him in confusion, his dominant emotion
for the day. Food, now? "I thought you were going out," he said,
looking back at Jeff.

Jeff held up one hand for silence. In the other, he shot a
rapid-fire text off on his cell phone, then sang, "Canceled," in his
best drag-queen contralto.

Greg danced into the room to drop a tray of snacks on the
table, three imported beers clutched under his arm. Sinking back onto the arm
of the chair, he placed one hand on Jeff's knee, the other on his own, and
leaned forward.

"Now," he said, blue eyes lit with expectation,
"spill."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Two hours later, his ears ringing with advice, coupled with
plenty of ribbing, Derrick headed home. Mark and Brian had shown up to find out
what all the fuss was about first hand, after which Derrick had hardly gotten a
word in edgewise.

There were moments when he'd considered whether four gay men
were necessarily the best consultants when mounting a campaign to win the woman
of his dreams. They certainly had a flair for the dramatic, but would that path
lead him inside Mia's heart?

In the end, Jeff had cut through all the crap with one
simple question. "Do you want her?"

"Yes," he'd said. "Yes, I do."

"Then go get her, son."

He planned to do just that.

There had to be a way for him and Mia to both get what they
wanted, starting with Mia losing the thing she'd fought so long to keep. All he
had to do was somehow open her heart before unwrapping the mysteries of her
body.

No one knew her better than he did, all evidence to the contrary
with the way she'd surprised him earlier. She might be ready to dump her
virginity, but what she really wanted, what she'd been trying unsuccessfully to
find all this time, was a lasting relationship with someone who truly cared
about her. Someone she could trust. Surely he could figure out a way to prove
he was that man and win the love she didn't think she believed in.

He could let her stew for a day or two, amp the tension. As
long as she didn't do something impulsive like hop in bed with another more
willing version of Barry out of spite or desperation. . .

That thought had him jerking upright in his seat. She'd been
pretty upset. Maybe he'd head back now. Just in case.

CHAPTER FOUR

Naked, Mia studied her reflection in the full-length mirror,
her bedroom awash in mockingly cheerful sunshine. Allison's too-tight bikini
had left reddened grooves along the crease of her thighs and the tops of her
shoulders, a thicker line beneath her breasts, but other than that, her flesh
was smooth and clear. She ran a hand down her side, testing. Her body was firm,
her skin soft. She glowed with health, and damn it, she looked good.

Moving both hands to cup her breasts, she turned side to
side. High and full, still on the larger side despite her weight loss, they had
a nice shape. Her nipples were a pretty rose color, puckered now into tight
peaks.

She took care of herself, yo-yoing weight issues
notwithstanding. She was buffed and polished, waxed in all the right places.
Manicured, pedicured, facialed. She worked hard and enjoyed her spa-day
indulgences, which she considered a nice personal perk for her professional
image. Sniffing lightly, she inhaled the lingering fragrance of her Dior
perfume. She smelled good—spicy and warm, sexy and not too sweet.

Maybe she wasn't a size four, but she'd worked her ass off,
literally, to shape up. Her butt was round, her waist trim, if not as small as
Allison's. Her thighs were toned, her arms lightly muscled, her back slender.

Clearly, her body was not the problem.

"So," she said to her image, "what the hell
is wrong with me?"

There it was, the real question. The one she'd been trying
to avoid for years. A decade. It had to be inside. Something in her character,
a deficiency that chased the men away, leaving her single over and over. Like
her mother.

Alone.

Irritated with herself, Mia ran her hands into the length of
her hair and pulled until her scalp begged for mercy. No matter how many times
her mother allowed her heart to be trampled, she'd spring back up and offer it
to the next handsome man to wink in her direction, ever hopeful this time would
end in happily-ever-after. That the next guy would be her prince.

Only one in all that time had even made it a full twelve
months. Richard. Just when Mia'd started to believe he might really be the one,
might really stick, he'd departed like all the rest.

That was when she'd finally figured it out. Her mother was
going about it all wrong, letting each man in too far, too soon, giving
everything up at the crook of a finger. At the age of fifteen, when her friends
were giving up their virginity as fast as they could, she'd instigated her
Three Month Rule.

But the Rule had failed every bit as badly as any of her
mother's relationships. In ten years of dating a stream of potential
candidates, only Barry had gone the distance. But when she'd set the
celebration scene, giddy with excitement, with expectation—and yes,
relief—finally on the cusp of sharing that most intimate part of herself
with a man, he'd turned her down.

Had it only been last night? Less than twenty-four hours
ago. It felt like a different lifetime.

"Let's wait a bit longer," he'd said, snuffing the
elegant candles she'd set to light all over the house, trampling the rose
petals strewn across the floor beneath his Italian-leather shoes. "We want
it to be perfect, don't we?"

Confused, yet nodding out of habit, Mia had pulled her dark
purple silk robe over her bare shoulders, covering the outrageously expensive
and, she'd thought, irresistible teddy, shielding her body from his derisive
gaze.

He'd waved a hand at her ensemble, his voice pitying when he
said, "You know, that's really not the most flattering look for someone
with your body type."

Shock had stolen her tongue.

"I want you at your very best," he'd continued,
dumping the two-hundred dollar champagne down the kitchen sink and setting her
best crystal flutes on the counter with a disapproving slap. "You'll feel
so much better, so much more confident, when you get to your goal. Just ten
more pounds. You can do it, Mia, if you buckle down."

Pulling her toward him, he'd dropped a chaste kiss on her
forehead. Her body had moved, unresisting, into his embrace, but the kiss
kindled the tiniest spark deep inside. Of rebellion.

"Ten pounds," she'd echoed, her voice raspy with
humiliation, and, thank God, the beginning of anger.

"Just ten," Barry affirmed, giving her ass a
hearty pat, then pinching it testingly between his fingers and shaking his head
sadly. "Maybe twelve."

And that tiny, flickering spark had flared. And raged.

The argument had spiraled across her small condo for hours,
recriminations and accusations hurled with hurricane force, ricocheting through
the halls. Then he'd hit her with the experiment angle, and how it was clear he
couldn't 'work' with her any more. He'd been willing to go forward a bit
longer, but if this was her attitude. . .

Barry's shock had been genuine, she knew. She'd buried her
spirit so well, for so long, he'd had no idea of the slumbering tigress he'd
unleashed. Her self-respect had finally reared its sharp-toothed head. It
refused to go quietly back inside its cage.

Finally, he'd fled after battering her with the last of his
insults, adding crazy and unstable to the long, long list of his rebukes, where
fat, lazy, undisciplined and over-emotional were the kindest of his complaints.

The adrenaline surge had flash-flooded out of her body with
the slamming of the front door on his retreat, leaving her aching and lost and
full, once again, of self-doubts. The tiger had curled back in its cage,
leaving her to deal with the fallout on her own.

And now. . .

Derrick's image filled her mind. Physical pain wracked her
body.

"Okay," she said, her throat tight,
"okay." Doubled over, she dropped to the floor next to her bed and curled
into a ball, rocking herself, her arms clasped tightly around her bare legs.
"One hour. You get one hour for your pity party, and then you have to
figure out a plan to fix this."

Mia waited for the tears to gush, their pressure building to
excruciating intensity inside her skull, but shame kept her eyes dry as desert
sand.

Head aching, body shuddering, she relived the scene on the
beach in unbearable detail. Even her mother had never managed to kill two
relationships in one twenty-four hour period.

Go me, she thought. A new record.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Derrick banged his fist on Mia's door a third time,
impatience lending extra oomph to each strike. Where the hell was she? He
checked his watch. She hadn't answered her house phone, her cell, the door, but
her car was in the garage, and the light in her upstairs bedroom glowed through
her filmy curtains.

Fine. She could pretend not to hear him, try to avoid him,
but he wasn't going anywhere. They were going to have this out right freaking
now.

Pulling his key ring from his pocket, he flipped through the
various bits of metal until he found Mia's house key, thrust it roughly into
the lock and let himself in.

"Mia!" he yelled. "It's me."

She didn't answer. Beeping on his right made him pause long
enough to disengage her security alarm before tromping through the lower rooms
to verify she wasn't downstairs. Family room, kitchen, nook, dining room,
office. Bathroom. He even checked inside the garage and, because it was there,
the hall closet.

Nope.

He took the stairs two at a time and called her name again
as he walked through her bedroom door.

Empty.

Frowning now, he turned in a slow circle to survey her room.
Her purse had been on the kitchen counter, her cell and keys next to it, so she
hadn't gone for a walk or left with anyone else. Mia never went anywhere
without her two-ton handbag.

The first tiny niggle of worry made an appearance—what
if something had happened to her? He strode back to the landing, and that's
when he saw it—the wavering light of candle glow emitting beneath her
bathroom door. Relief released the tension in his muscles. She was in the tub.

Of course. Girls and their baths.

Derrick pivoted on his heel and headed back to Mia's room,
dropping into the giant denim-covered beanbag chair on the floor next to her
bed. He toed off his shoes and grabbed one of her fitness magazines off her
nightstand and prepared to wait.

His own resounding snore woke him with a jerk. The magazine
slid off his chest to rustle to the floor, and he brought a hand up to rub at
the crick in his neck. Bleary-eyed, he checked his watch. Swore. Over an hour.

No telling how long Mia had been in there before he'd
arrived, but he knew his girl—she was a marathon bubble bather. She could
soak for three hours, longer if she was reading. Or sulking.

Not tonight.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, Derrick shook off the
late nap, replaced her magazine on her bedside stack and unkinked his muscles
one at a time as he rose. Recalling Mia's hands moving over his bare skin in
long, slow strokes, a grin spread across his lips.

It was time to put his new plan in motion.

At the bathroom door, he paused a moment to gather his
thoughts. Banishing the echo of Jeff's and Greg's teasing voices, he
straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again, louder. "Mia?"

When she failed to respond, he tried the doorknob. It turned
in his hand, and he stepped into a steamy, fragrant female paradise lit by
clusters of fluttering candles.

Her bedroom was sunny, warm and welcoming, feminine without
a load of frills, as was the rest of the house. He'd always been comfortable
hanging out in her space. But her bathroom was a pampered princess's pleasure
pit, so girly it made his teeth ache.

In the normal course of things, he avoided this particular
room. Just stepping across the threshold could make his family jewels crawl
halfway up to his stomach in defense, but tonight. . . tonight there was a
naked Mia inside. And they needed to talk.

Several shades of pink and a pale, spring green exploded
everywhere, from the linens and rugs on the cool tile floor, to the
flower-papered walls and the vast array of mysterious bottles and pots of
potions on the marble counter. Sheer, lacy white fabric framed the single
window, the shower doors, and draped the bath like the curtains on a queen's
canopied bed. Pink roses and sparkling jewels on a twining silk vine topped
them all, turning the small room into what Mia called her faerie bower.

She'd roped him into hanging the damn things himself, a few
months after she'd moved into the condo. He half expected a faerie to spring
from one of the framed prints on the walls and force him out. No men allowed.

Mia reclined in her large oval tub, mounds of bubbles
concealing all but her head, the tops of her creamy shoulders, and the tips of
her toes peeping through the foam at the far end of the bath. A purple-satin
sleep mask covered her eyes. Headphones, connected to her hot-pink iPod sitting
in a decoratively scrolled metal tray on the side of the tub, filled her ears.

He inhaled. Scents of brown sugar, vanilla and something
floral—the candle wax—swirled through the air.

"Mia?"

Not wanting to startle her unduly, he'd whispered her name.
But between her iPod and the deep rumble of the motor on her jetted tub, there
was no way she'd hear him at that low volume. Judging by the angle of her
drooping head, her chin resting on her left shoulder and her lush mouth
slightly open, she was sound asleep.